


Life's Gambles

by depizan



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Action/Adventure, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2018-07-19 18:46:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7373254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/depizan/pseuds/depizan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ficlets from the life of Captain Jezari Solarin, smuggler, ace pilot, rescuer of people in trouble, and occasional subcontractor to the SIS.  Often featuring her best friend Savler.</p>
<p>(Runs from Jezari's childhood up until "The Enemy of My Enemy Is...?")</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Childhood Puzzle

**Author's Note:**

> Even smugglers and bounty hunters were once just kids.

“Maybe your mom’s a customs officer.”

“What?” Jezari stopped trying to figure out whether Freighter A or Freighter B would get to Hutta first and peered over the edge of the crate she was sitting on.

Savler had abandoned her own school work in favor of trying out her sister’s nailpolish. “Think about it. It’d explain everything.”

“Mom’s not a customs officer.”

“She can’t live with your dad. But she can visit. Your dad doesn’t want her meeting any of his friends.” She counted the reasons off on her fingers, flashing electric blue nails. “Even my parents - and they’re almost honest. And she never says _anything_ about her work.”

“Okay, maybe.” Jezari tried to picture her mom in the drab customs office uniform. “Except she’s way too smart.” Customs _never_ seemed to catch on to the tricks her dad and his friends pulled. They were a joke. Or the smart ones were all off fighting the Empire instead.

“Yeah, duh,” said Savler. “She’s got herself a whole double life going. She gets to be all respectable and stuff _and_ she gets to come out here where things are interesting.’

“I don’t know.” She went back to her math problem. All her dad would ever say was “she has her own life,” and her mom just asked if it really mattered. And it didn’t. 

Except it kinda did. _What’s more important than me and dad?_


	2. Strategy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jezari and Savler pass time in hyperspace.

The _Luck’s_ intercom system wasn’t really meant to play music, but one of Savler’s cousins had fixed that for them the last time they’d stopped by the mining operation. It wasn’t as good as a real sound system, but it did the job. And made boring stretches of hyperspace a little less boring.

Jezari squinted at her army of holomonsters. What was left of it, anyway. She munched a cube of meat from the leftovers they’d reheated for dinner and tried looking at the board from a different angle.

“Face it, Jez, you’re toast,” Savler said cheerfully. “You can play rings around half the galaxy at sabacc, but you wouldn’t know strategy if it bit you.”

Jezari stuck her tongue out at her. “I do just fine in real life.”

“Yeah, because you’ve got me.”

“Oh, it’s all you, is it?”

“The strategizing is.” Savler waved a strip of fried tuber for emphasis. “I am an expert strategist.”

Jezari leaned back. “Really? Bet you can’t win if we trade places.”

Savler studied the board for a moment. “You’re on.”

“Wait.” Jezari looked down at the holomonsters. “Did I miss something?”

“Always. Scoot.” Savler shooed her out of her seat. “Just watch.”

Jezari took the vacated seat opposite. “I think you just programmed it to like you better.”

Savler grinned. “That’s a strategy, too.”


	3. The Problem WIth Hutts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jezari and Savler's smuggling career hits the occasional snag. Such are the risks of working for galactic crime lords.

It wasn’t wise to refuse a Hutt. Their orders weren’t suggestions, and neither were their job offers. In fact, it was common wisdom in the galactic underworld that you should only approach a Hutt (or any other powerful crime lord) when you were sure that what you wanted and what they wanted were one and the same. If, somehow, you found yourself being asked by a Hutt to do something you didn’t want to do, the smart thing, the sensible thing, the thing everybody in the galaxy knew to do was to say yes and then quietly escape out the back door. Nobody said no.

Nobody was that foolish, that suicidal, that eager to visit the inside of a Hutt dungeon.

Nobody.

“What the hell were you thinking!?” Savler kicked the bars of the cell. The metallic thunk echoed down the grimy corridor, and a few flakes of what she hoped was rust scattered across the ground and the toe of her boot. “You wanted to see how fast a Hutt could go from happy to pissed? ‘Cause I’ve never seen one turn that fast.”

“I didn’t have time to think!” Jezari waved a hand in the general direction of Gorlo the Hutt’s audience hall. “One minute he’s all ‘ohhoho great job,’ the next….”

Savler growled and gave the bars another kick.

Of course Gorlo wanted them to follow up one successful run with another. That was the problem with Hutts - them liking you was almost as bad as them not liking you. Squeak some spice through customs and they wouldn’t just pay you, they’d want you to do it again. Only it hadn’t been spice again Gorlo had wanted, it had been slaves.

And Jezari had opened her mouth before she could.

“Frak!”

The bars weren’t going to kick open. And it didn’t matter, really. It was a scare tactic, nothing more. Stick them in a disgusting cell that smelled like its last occupant had died there and come back in a few hours to see if they’d found their common sense.

It was just so… so… _stupid_.

“It’s not like I planned this,” Jezari grumbled.

“Ngh.” Savler turned on her heel and slumped back against the bars. They were the cleanest thing in the cell, which wasn’t saying much. “I should’ve known that was coming. He wouldn’t ask us here just to pay us. Shit.”

“He couldn’t have stuck to spice? Stolen datapads? Illegal cybernetics? Blasters? Loads of people draw the line at slaves!”

“When they come back, we say yes and get the hell out of here before he loads cargo.” _If he doesn’t lock us up somewhere comfier until it’s time to go._ “Maybe you better let me do the talking.”

“What is it?”

She poked a stained lump of cloth with her foot.

“Savler.”

“Just thinking it might not be that easy. He needs us, and soon, or he wouldn’t just go for scaring us. We might not have a choice.”

“Hell, no,” Jezari said. “We’re not hauling slaves. We’re getting out of here.”

“Jez…”

Her partner examined the bars. They made up the whole front of the cell, one big swinging gate, more like an animal cage than a prison. Savler supposed it was an animal cage at least part of the time. That would explain the smell.

“Hmm.” Jezari reached between the bars, feeling for the release.

“It takes a key or a code.”

“I know, I know. Here.” She shrugged out of her jacket and handed it to Savler, followed by her (empty) gunbelt. “Hold these a sec.”

“Jez, there are guards. Gamorreans. Even if you get out, you can’t… Damn it.”

She wasn’t listening. Oblivious to all reason and good sense, Jezari stuck her arm, shoulder, and head through the bars, sucked in her breath, and very carefully wedged herself between them. The clasp on her pants caught for a moment and then she was through.

“Okay, genius,” Savler said. “Now what?”

“Hand me my stuff.”

She passed the coat and belt through the bars. “You got an override card in your pocket or something?”

“No, but I’ve got an idea.”

“Jez…”

“I’ll be right back.” She grinned and vanished up the poorly lit corridor.

“Jez! Get back here!” Savler was 95% sure she knew what the plan was and she already hated it. “Jez!”

The sound of running feet and Gamorrean cursing told her she’d guessed correctly even before Jezari, pursued by a guard waving a sparking shock stick, sprinted into view. She dodged the guard, running in circles until the guard got too close to the cell. And Savler.

She hooked an arm around his neck, pulling him up against the bar, and added her other arm for good measure.

The Gamorrean squealed and swung the shock stick backwards. It clanged on the metal bars, the jolt surging through them both.

“Fuck!”

“Skonk!”

The shock stick rebounded and the Gamorrean dropped it, stumbling forward out of Savler’s suddenly limp grasp. She stumbled back, her arms, chest, and the side of her face still tingling.

Jezari grabbed the shock stick, swinging it wildly at the Gamorrean as she edged toward the wall. She had a keycard in her free hand.

“Jez, here.” Savler opened her hands, miming catching something.

Jezari lunged at the Gamorrean, skipped back, and tossed her the keycard. “Hurry!”

“Your ideas,” Savler muttered. She couldn’t see the slot for the keycard and it took a long moment of fumbling before it slipped into place. With a muted beep, the cell door swung open.

Moments later, the Gamorrean was locked in the cell and Savler was squinting at the shock stick’s settings.

“Even if he didn’t hit the alarm, they’re going to notice he’s gone,” she pointed out. “We can’t take on all of Gorlo’s guards with this.”

“So we let out everybody else down here.” Jezari flipped the keycard into the air and caught it.

“That’s…almost a plan.”

“It’s what we’ve got.”

Five minutes later, Gorlo’s dungeons were empty of all but a lone Gamorrean guard.

Ten minutes later, Gorlo’s guards were far too busy with angry former prisoners to notice two women stealing a speeder.

Fifteen minutes later, Gorlo’s compound had vanished from the speeder’s rear view mirror.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Gorlo is the same Hutt from Novani's fic. This fic takes place six years before the events of that fic, however.


End file.
